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31 December 2009

While delivering various and assundry goods I happened to read this little blurb in local in one of the systems I passed through:

Jehosh Farrfury: In my wallet is 12 bill isk, send me any amount you like, and then in less than 10 seconds your wallet will contain 5x the amount you actually sent me! Yes, so if you sent me 10m, you will have 50m sent back, Guaranteed!

I had thought I'd seen the last of these when I was done with rookie chat.

Now, EvE is a cutthroat game with scams everywhere you look but this is just plain lazy to me. I truly hope this doesn't work on people or my faith in humanity may suffer.

With the New Year coming AU-F is making some big moves which are pretty exciting. The alliance guys are making a move to NPC null-sec in an effort to carve out a little living space, while a good chunk of the corp is relocating to Caldari space. The move is meant to help us in a few ways, chiefly in getting the membership back into a general area and reunited after becoming largely disjointed over the past few months. The main reason for this is the increased activity in Providence recently which has made everyday life in the area rather hard.

It is clear from our discussions that everyone in AU-F has the utmost respect for CVA and what they have done in Providence. However the NRDS policy has made it increasingly tougher to survive. The big change has been a large influx of hostile neutral players looking for easy targets. This is particularly difficult situation for players like me because we are stuck between a rock and a hard place in Providence. If I suspect a neutral to have hostile intentions I cannot act to prevent them by relieving him of his ship and giving him a fast ride home. I also cannot launch my mining ship to tear apart those asteroids because I know that neutral is looking for an easy Hulk kill. With that being said Providence has been good to me in giving me a place to really sink my teeth into null-sec game play. From managing POS’s to blowing up other players Providence has taught me a lot. While many of us feel we need to take a break from the area this respect for CVA and Providence is what prompted the decision to venture into Caldari space; where we should be able to avoid aligning to reds of CVA.

So for now I will be working on moving my collection of random junk and grinding standings when time allows.

*As an interesting aside I have discovered that unpackaged ships can be carried in a freighter when setup as a courier contract. I was under the impression this was not true but am happy to be proven wrong!

23 December 2009

For all of you that celebrate it; Merry Christmas. Now that CCP has given us some nice presents I got to thinking about my wish list for EvE.

I know we all have plenty of 'I Wants' for EvE but all-in-all I love the game. Still it's fun to dream right?

My Wish List:1) Faction Carriers; I know, I know; I can't even fly my base model carrier yet but you know you all want to see a pirate carrier, with flame paint job maybe?!?2) POS repair ship hanger; I'm not a big WH surfer but in my short time in the unknown realms I felt the need for a simple repair tool. Of course modules or other ships can do the job and there would be balancing issues for cap ship support etc, but I'm indulging myself here so go with it.3) General increase in POSusefulness; With the Sov changes taking the POS out of the lime light for gaining and maintaining control of space it seems like time they look at the usability and utility of POS's in general. Of course an outpost should always be the better option but I would like to see living out of a POS get a boost.4) iPhone Ventrillo app; While this isn't a CCP wish one of the best things I could hope to get in the near future would be an app that would let me get on Vent with my iPhone. With this I could carry my Vent conversations into the kitchen when I need some more eggnogg etc.

18 December 2009

It looks like the EvE devs are just in a giving mood this holiday season. After handing out free ships to all (subscription) EvE players they've provided a handy scanning video to help use that free scanner attached to the Zephyr.

17 December 2009

So what's a new player to do after reading the New Player Guide or some of the other guides available on starting out in EvE?

Well if you run missions or enjoy pvp: one word (it could be two, I'm not a professional): BattleCruisers.

Why? Well it's pretty simple really; battlecruisers are much tougher and usually more powerful offensive weapons than cruisers, but at the same time they use the same weapons systems. What this means for you is that you can continue to use the weapons you have been working on for cruisers but they typically become more effective which helps take on those tougher rats or really put the hurt on other players. Those medium railguns or beam lasers that you crammed onto the cruiser hulls for missioning can be used again on a battlecruiser hull as well.

This is a bonus because it will allow users who are obsessive optimizers to take a break from learning combat skills to grow in the learning skills. It also allows those players who want to expand beyond missions to take a break and tackle those desires, all while being able to continue making ISK in missions or even nul-sec belt ratting.

So an update; obviously 12/18 EvE time is a bit before 12/18 EST which I failed to take into account. But thanks to some corpmates I realized I could go ahead an claim my free Zephyr now. Here's a screen in case you haven't gotten around to it yet:

It looks like the devs have decided to give us a fancy wormhole exploration vessel for Christmas. You can read about it on the Dev Blog but the Zephyr as it is called is going to be a nearly 0 mass ship with a special probe launcher (that uses normal core probes). It looks to be built just for wormhole exploration as Sleepers are afraid to attack such a little ship and the low mass will not affect the stability of the wormhole. Enjoy some shiny screens from the dev blog and be sure to claim yours between 12/18/2009 and 1/6/2010 or you won't be getting one:

14 December 2009

For all of you die hard traders, and anyone looking to make a quick buck EvE Metrics is a pretty handy site. It's actually a nice idea to compile all that data coming from the API key into a convenient market tool for everyone to use. I find myself failing at the EvE market far more than I win, however many people seem to do quite well. Good luck.

I've now climbed into my first non Gallente combat ship, blasphemy I know! The Drake flies like a dumptruck and looks about as pretty as one. BUT it's also pretty damn tough, not to mention cheap and easy to find. Although it's not the biggest damage dealer out there it sure can hang around until the job is done. It's basically a mini-battleship.

A lot of people have told me that this ship is the end all when it comes to battle-cruiser combat. I'm not fully convinced yet because I am pretty attached to my Myrmidon and my little drone friends. However, those same drones I love are a huge liability in sleeper combat as the AI on those sleeper ships seems to have a particular distaste for drones. In hoping to rid the universe of a few more sleepers I have decided to embrace the Drake and it's ability to deal damage without drones, while taking plenty of abuse.

A handy side benefit of training for the Drake is that I am now only days away from flying a whole range of new ships thanks to my advanced training in cruiser hulls. One of the major ships I'm looking forward to is the Onyx which is the perfect heavy interdictor in my mind. I love my Phobos as well but I've seen the Onyx take a serious pounding in person. This also qaulifies me for my first hybrid faction vessel in the Gila which is an amazing, if expensive, ship.

Anyway, I'm now back on track for my Thanatos after this little detour.

30 November 2009

I have a shiny new frigate, what can I do?Just like anything in EvE this has many answers. If you're looking to mine asteroids dry then your are just a few skills and a mining frigate away. If you're passions lean to the more violent you can follow a different path and jump into some PvP with just a little training. Somewhere between these two is the tried and true art of mission running. We will discuss how to get started in each of these professions in seperate posts.

EvE is complicated! Help!
EvE is a rewarding and entertaining game but there are times when anyone can find themselves overwhelmed by the many player paths and choices. If I could go back and give myself some advice when I first started it would be this: download EVEMon!!! You can get EVEMon here: EVEMon Download
This tool allows you to plan out your characters skill progression based on ships and/or modules you would like to use. Trying to do this without EVEMon can make EvE far more complicated than it needs to be.
In order to use EVEMon you will need your Limited API Key from EvE. This allows the program (and others) to download the details of your character automatically. You can get the key from EvE's website here: Limited API Key

Okay, I'm ready to setup some ships and play
There are a few tools to assist in ship setup and fitting. In order to take advantage of all the work other people have put in agonizing over ship setups you should check out the EvE forums: EvE Forums Ship Setup
One of the best tools for creating your setups is EFT (EvE Fitting Tool). You will also need your API key for this if you would like to see how you skills affect the ship, but it isn't required otherwise. This little app allows you to play around with ship setups and see how each piece interacts.
Another great tool for ship setups is EvEHQ which combines EVEMon and EFT in one tool. I have written a little bit about EvEHQ here: EvEHQ Post

What's next?!?
If you've decided what you would like to try first, or even if you haven't, keep reading. Next we are going to dive into a few of the various options for a new player.

When it comes to mining as a beginner; each race has a specialized mining frigate which you can jump in relatively quickly. You should receive the skills and a bit of practice in mining during the tutorial missions. If you find that you enjoy mining you should focus on moving to a specialized mining vessel as soon as possible. Below is a basic fitting and skill plan that will allow you to pilot a simply fitted Retriever class mining barge (in less than 2 weeks with any luck).

Retriever, Simple Fit

High Slots: 2x Strip Miner I

Mid Slot: Empty

Low Slots: 2x Expanded Cargohold II

Skills Required

Science IV

Mining IV

Astrogeology IV

Industry V

Mining Barge III

Hull Upgrades II

You will notice a great improvement in your mining ability when stepping up from a mining frigate to the Retriever. The next step from here would be a Hulk class Exhumer.

However, before moving on from this point I would like to advise that any new player take some time to train their support skills, chief among these being the learning skills, followed by ship support skills. Your learning skills will allow you to learn new (and exciting) skills much faster as you progress in EvE and will benefit you for the remainder of your career. The ship support skills will also benefit you for a long time and will help you become better at flying every ship, including the ones you are already in.
EVEMon will help by suggesting the learning skills that can speed up your training in the bottom lefthand corner (click on the link). It can also help you with your ship support skills. You may want to consider learning the first level of all the "Core" certificates under EVEMon's "Certificates" tab (right click to add to queue).

If you're dream is to become a crusty, scarred PvP pilot then fear not; you don't have to spend years in training to make a valuable contribution to fleets. One of the most important parts of any fleet is the "tackler." This player (or group of players if possible) is responsible for getting as close to the target as possible and disrupting their warp engines. The great thing about this role is that a new player can do this without too much training. The key ingredients to being a tackler are speed and the ability to fit Warp Disruptors.

Speed is very important as you must stay close to the target to keep them from escaping, it will also help keep your smaller ship alive while you orbit the enemy with as much speed as possible. Very often you will find that the enemy cannot hit you if they are in a large ship. Some of the skills you may need:

Once you get out with a fleet you will get a feel for the other ships being flown and will hopefully see something you like.
However, before moving on from this point I would like to advise that any new player take some time to train their support skills, chief among these being the learning skills, followed by ship support skills. Your learning skills will allow you to learn new (and exciting) skills much faster as you progress in EvE and will benefit you for the remainder of your career. The ship support skills will also benefit you for a long time and will help you become better at flying every ship, including the ones you are already in.
EVEMon will help by suggesting the learning skills that can speed up your training in the bottom lefthand corner (click on the link). It can also help you with your ship support skills. You may want to consider learning the first level of all the "Core" certificates under EVEMon's "Certificates" tab (right click to add to queue).

So, you may like mining or you may like PvP but right now you just want to make a little money? That's no problem. Running missions is an old hobby in EvE and one that can serve your wallet well. You should have already run some tutorial missions so I won’t bore you with the basics of how to do that. If you haven’t noticed it already the agents that give you missions have two numbers associated with them The first number is the level which takes into account your standing with the Faction and the actual Agent to decide if you are allowed to use them. The second number is the quality of the agent which determines the reward amount (it isn’t a direct correlation so don’t panic if you like a -10 agent).
As a new character your frigate may struggle with some missions but should get the job done if you set it up well. When it comes to setting up your ships for missions one of the best places to look is the EvE forums. Here you can advance from the work of others as well as ask your own questions about specific setups.
After you have your ship ready you will want to find an agent. One of the easiest ways to do this is online at Eve-Agents. You can search based on various criteria to help you find an agent that is right for you. If you have already downloaded EvEHQ there is an agent finder built right in which you may find handy as well.
Okay, so you have your ship and you have accepted a mission from your agent, now what? Well, you're going to run that mission of course. Before you do though you may want to take a trip over to EvE-Survival to check out the mission reports. Here you will find recon information from other pilots who have flown the missions you may be tasked with. You can use this information to better prepare your ship or to find out exactly which enemies you need to attack.
Once you have had some time to advance your skills and have a few missions under your belt there is quite a lot to out there. If you feel like venturing into null-sec chaising the big bounties on those NPC battleships then you may want read about Chaining Rats. On the other hand if you need a little bit of passive income and would like to put those hours of missioning to use again you will be very interested in using R&D Agents. You may want to keep this in mind when looking for your first few agents: not all factions have good R&D Agents so if you would like to take advantage of this you may want to start with a faction that does.

It looks like the Dominion update is on it's way tommorow. If you haven't already obsessed over them you can check out the patch notes here: PatchNotes

One of the things I am particulary excited about is the new fleet tools. My favorite part is the ability to post fleets in a manner similar to corporate contracts. This is going to make ad-hoc activity of all kinds much easier and I am really excited about the possibility of just joining up a fleet in progress such as a Mendolus roam or one of the Alliance fleets. If taken full advatage of this feature will get rid of a good chunk of the "any fleets?" or "x up for fleet" chatter. Taking something that we have to handle manually and informally in chat and placing into a new interface is a great step forward for fleets. Of course I am also excited to use this for pick up mining operations.
You can find the full details here: Now Where Did I Put That Fleet?

Obviously this is a small part of a pretty major upgrade, but I don't really feel qaulified to discuss Sovereignty in a very detailed manner.

13 November 2009

I, like many among us, have been particulary busy lately and have been afk a lot. While I hate missing out on in game activities I'm glad it has come at a time when other people are in similar boats. I am excited to return soon to both a new version of EVE and a new burst of energy to play a game I've been away from too much lately.

Thankfully Mend feels the same way so I hope the whole corp will come back with a similar energy so we can take Dominion by storm.

11 September 2009

While it may not be quite as amazing as EveMon at some things I have found that the new program EvEHQ is a pretty amazing little tool. EveMon is going to be tough to replace in the planning department but this program is much better at monitoring while also throwing in a fitting tool which I like just a bit better than EFT. I would give this program a try if you have ever wanted to search agents, build POS's, check your wallet, or play mad EvE scientists while you monitor your skills.

While I've been out for a Labor Day vacation that we decided to extend I've been away from the internet. Thankfully the trusty iPhone allowed me to setup a flickr photostream while I was relaxing:Meatay's Photostream

02 September 2009

Mendolus just posted some clarifications of the security for the corp: Uneasy Truth.

While it may seem a bit harsh these are the types of things that determine success or failure, whether its an EVE corp or a real one. With our current drive to grow and the loss of some really important members (who I hope are returning soon) this is one of the most important issues to be aware of.

A corp full of spies just doesn't sound fun, unless of course it were actually a corp... of spies, but that's another discussion.

01 September 2009

In an effort to help both the corp and the members Sarah Tuttle is launching a corp ore buy program to go along with the corporate mining program. This will allow the miners of the corp to trade the waste and tax of standard refine for a small tax that will help the entire corp in multiple ways: ice products for POS fuel, ore products for production, and cash for new programs.

28 August 2009

Thanks to Sarah/Merthe's hard work grinding missions and training skills we should be able to expect excellent refine rates and have found a new system which is much more convenient to take advantage of that.

Most of the HiSec ops will happen here because it will allow us to avoid the multi-system jumps as well as long freighter trips.

The upcoming op will be taking place in the new system (Goram) so check the Mining Channel for details.

26 August 2009

During the AOV ice mining op last night we had an unusual bit of excitement. It began with a very large fleet of T1 frigates from Local Threat passing by us and ended with almost as many pods going back to Empire. After Mendolus reported the upswing in activity nearby LogicFX tried to get a smart bombing battleship ready in time but was too late to get in on the mass destruction of these relatively new players. I heard reports that they were dooms-day’d but I assume it was another smart bomber who tore the frigates apart. Either way it was an interesting break in the mining.

On a related note Mend and Logic were able to pod a red who logged off while they killed his ship which was very fun for the whole fleet to enjoy.

When each goal is met the person with the highest total deposited of that type will get a reward. Nlor Rath has been kind enough to provide rewards for this so they will be a surprise until winners are announced.

The ore/ice may be placed in the Mining tab of the corporate hangers in either Vattuolen or Ukkalen. If you need hisec hauling please contact Meatay.

When you make a deposit please send an EvEmail with the total of your contribution to Meatay so that your individual contributions can be properly counted.

25 August 2009

The AU-F mining fleet has a few simple rules when operating in High Security space.

Listen to the fleet commander when orders are issued.

This means you should also listen to any combat escort commanders if they ask you to do something.

Manage your drones.

This is very important! If you use combat drones to destroy a belt rat ALWAYS bring them back into your drone bay when you are finished. Unattended drones pose a risk to the fleet as they can attack anyone who does steal from a wreck.

Do not reveal the fleet location.

The fleet is operating a variety of expensive ships. Do not broadcast the intended mining location to anyone but fleet members or those who have a reason to know. All miners should get the location from the AU-F Mining channel if possible.

Be careful "jetcan" mining for the safety of the fleet.

It is important that the fleet avoids leaving jetcans in the field as much as possible. Unless told otherwise miners will be allowed to spread out into the belt but should keep jetcans to a minimum. Once your Cargo is full you are free to jettison a can and use it for a short period. That can will be tractored in as soon as possible by the Orca pilot. If you are in range of the Orca, always use the corporate hangers.

Remove the loot from wrecks, then destroy the wreck.

Just like jetcans, the wrecks of belt rats can cause an enemy pilot to get aggression against a fleet member. The Orca pilots will always try to handle the wrecks for you but if they do not make an effort to remove the loot and place it into the Orca.

Don't cross the beams.

The fleet commander will attempt to asign specific ore types to pilots when possible. However, keep in mind that Hi-Sec asteroid belts typically have short lives under the withering beams of a Hulk so much of the mining will be left to the miners discretion. In light of this please try to mine from asteroids that are not currently being mined by another player. This will help us reduce wasted cycles.

Use Ventrillo.

If you are able to please use vent. This makes communicating easier and typically makes the entire operation more fun in general.

01 January 2009

Creation of EvE online Corporation or Alliance websites for a small (isk) fee.

I have created a website for my own corporation using blogger (HTML vs. a standard theme). You can view the site here Aurelius Federation

If your corporation or alliance would like a new website please contact me.

I use blogger because I want to allow all of the corporate directors the option of being contributors/admins which is exceptionally easy with blogger. Once the site is up and running I just send directors an email via the permissions tab and they can setup a gmail (or use their current one) to manage the site. When they accept I make them admins and remove myself.

If this is something that appeals to you email me at evemeatay@yahoo.com or evemail "Meatay" in game.